


we'll hold each other soon

by badskeletonpuns



Series: Blow Us All Away [1]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/M, Multi, Post-Hephaestus, Reunion Fic, blow us all away au, but no actual minkaffel in this fic other than friendship, koudelka pov, pre-minkaffel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 19:50:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6673354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskeletonpuns/pseuds/badskeletonpuns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a kiss meme on tumblr - a reunion kiss, with Minkowski and Koudelka. Set before the main events of the Blow Us All Away AU, and no knowledge of that AU is required to understand this fic. This is the first fic, chronologically, in the series. Enjoy your mostly happy homecoming, folks!</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll hold each other soon

David Koudelka had been waiting at the airport for almost three hours. No one except for qualified personnel had been allowed at the landing site for the Hephaestus crew, possibly because it was less of a planned landing site and more of a cleared area the shuttle happened to crash in.

 

Goddard had sent him Renee’s infrequent messages, but nothing more. And when they stopped coming, the corporation refused to tell him anything. 

 

He had been sure she was dead. 

 

It was quite the shock when he woke up to find the logs of someone called ‘Doug Eiffel’ plastered all over the internet - “#savehephaestus” was trending on multiple websites, and there were more than a few organizations very curious about how Goddard planned to bring the crew home. Because of course they had to bring them home after this. Once the story of the Hephaestus broke, public opinion of the business had fallen rapidly along with their stock prices. This was probably a literal nightmare for the PR folks over at Goddard. 

 

Somehow, David felt absolutely no sympathy for them. 

 

David’s own firm wanted him to write a piece on Renee, how it felt to know she was coming home after all this time. 

 

He politely refused. He would report any information Goddard released publicly, go to all of their talks on rescue plans, all of the things the other reporters from other papers and sites were doing. But there were some things that should not have editorials written about them.

 

The months passed quickly, in blurry snapshots of press releases and long distance calls to a star far, far, away, supportive coworkers baking him dinners and working later and later, as if by reporting on what was happening a billion miles away he could set it in stone. If he planned an article on how the scrappy Hephaestus crew cobbled together a shuttle with the help of their mysterious Captain Lovelace (the press had had a field day with her reveal, too), then Renee and Eiffel and Lovelace and Hilbert would all work together and put together a working shuttle.

 

If he didn’t mention all the problems and dangers inherent in any form of space travel, pretended he hadn’t frantically researched them until two am instead of finishing his article on an assassination attempt on a prime minister, then none of those problems would ever come to pass.

 

It worked, in the end. Here he was. Waiting in an airport at one am, only awake through sheer force of will and several cups of frankly awful airport coffee. He’d had worse, though, and he would drink gallons of this lightly flavored water if it meant he would be awake to see Renee when she stepped off the plane. 

 

Goddard had secured the crew tickets to wherever they wanted to go as soon as the hospital certified them as “not in immediate danger of death”. Most of the crew had gone their separate ways, but apparently the Douglas Eiffel that had started all of the hype in the first place was coming here with Renee. David had listened to all of his logs - he sounded like a good man. Likeable. Hopefully, he would want to keep in contact after everything that had happened. 

 

David had wanted to be there in the hospital, but again, no one was allowed near the crew until Goddard said so. He hoped they weren’t trying to intimidate them into promising silence, because once he had Renee back with him, he was planning on taking Goddard apart piece by incriminating piece. He was sure that with the testimony of the former crew on his side he could get Goddard shut down. 

 

It was the least he could do. 

 

Over the loudspeakers of the airport, a tinny voice announced flight 953 from Cape Canaveral was landing and David could not stand up fast enough. He shoved his laptop off his lap and almost knocked his coffee on the floor trying to get out of his seat. 

 

He almost missed them coming - Renee wasn’t just skinnier than he remembered, she was smaller, somehow. Her and the former communications officer of the Hephaestus leaned on each other heavily as they walked down the corridor to the waiting area. 

 

The moment he caught sight of them, Renee happened to look up and they made eye contact and she smiled helplessly at him and it felt like coming home. He jogged towards her as quickly as he could without angering the airport security guards and she was running towards him, abandoning her and Eiffel’s small carry-ons behind her. 

 

They ran into each other like colliding galaxies, chaotic and almost in slow motion. She threw her arms around his shoulders and he pulled her in close, lips connecting in a kiss for the first time in years. Renee’s lips were chapped against his own and her face was wet. David pulled back for a moment - she was crying, but she was also smiling. She brought her hand up to his face, gently wiping away tears he didn’t remember shedding. 

 

“You’re okay,” he choked out, barely able to speak. Until this moment, maybe, he hadn’t really realized that. It was like until he’d seen her and held her close, there was always this chance that it was all just a dream. If he had blinked Renee would still have been officially MIA, unofficially presumed dead, and he would be alone again. 

 

“I’m okay,” she breathed back, leaning her forehead against his own. She was barely tall enough to do so. 

 

“Well, okay is a strong word,” someone said behind Renee. David looked up at the someone. This must be the Douglas Eiffel, who most of the internet knew and loved. Eiffel was a tall man, skinny almost to the point of malnourishment. David was struck with the sudden desire to cover this stranger in a blanket and feed him until he stopped looking like a strong gust of wind would blow him off his feet. 

 

Eiffel continued. “I mean, alive, yeah, we’re both definitely alive. And non-critically injured. But I am not Augustus Waters and okay is probably not our always.” 

 

David kissed the side of Renee’s mouth again, smiling at her before stepping away. “Are you sure? You’re always talking about smoking in your logs, and that is a very Augustus thing to do,” he said, and leaned over to pick up Renee’s carry-on. 

 

“People actually heard those?” Eiffel asked, face twisted in confusion. “I thought only Command got those recordings, and I’m still not sure they didn’t just toss them in the trash bin the moment they came in. Also, my cigarettes aren’t a pretentious metaphor.” 

 

The three of them began to make their way towards the exit - neither Renee nor Eiffel having any luggage beyond their small carry-ons. The airport was by no means busy, but there were still people coming and going even at this late hour. 

 

They continued their conversation for the rest of the walk to the train station - debating over whether or not Eiffel could be all three main characters in The Fault In Our Stars at once. David still held out he was Augustus, but Eiffel himself was pretty sure the lung issues meant that he was totally Hazel. Renee mentioned that time Eiffel was temporarily blind, so he could also be Isaac.

 

“Have you noticed my main similarity to all of these characters is the ways that they’re all sick? Does that say something about me?” Eiffel asked while they were on the train back to David’s apartment. He sat nearest the aisle, long legs just waiting to trip innocent passerby. 

 

“Eiffel, you are the most accident-prone man I have ever met. This has told us nothing we don’t already know,” Renee said, leaning across David to look at Eiffel while she spoke to him. 

 

“I will have you know that your husband was casting me as Augustus Waters solely on the basis of my dashing good looks,” Eiffel said solemnly. He glanced at David. “Right, Koudelka?” 

 

David grinned at both his wife and Eiffel. “I was thinking it had more to do with your propensity for overlong metaphors and great love for cigarettes - the fact that Augustus doesn’t actually smoke them means nothing.” He paused, taking a moment to look at Eiffel. “Although I won’t pretend your ‘dashing good looks’ don’t factor into the equation somewhere.” 

 

Eiffel was definitely blushing. Then David mentioned something about the Fault In Our Stars movie and that set the conversation on the one-way track of every movie that came out in the last couple of years. When he told Renee about the new hip hop Broadway musical he was pretty sure she almost cried. When he told Eiffel about the new Star Wars movie, Eiffel definitely cried. 

 

After David vowed to speak no spoilers until they’d had at least seven movie nights, possibly eight, the conversation lapsed into silence. It wasn’t long before the quiet breathing of Eiffel and Renee on either side of him evened and slowed into sleep. It wasn’t long after that that Eiffel unceremoniously slumped over until he was leaning on David’s shoulder, and Renee slowly slid until she was lying more across his lap than her own seat. David yawned once, the late hour finally beating down his excitement at seeing his wife again and meeting Eiffel for the first time. He smiled sleepily to himself. Before closing his eyes, David turned and kissed Eiffel’s forehead softly, and leaned down and kissed Renee’s forehead as well. 

 

He yawned once more, and settled in to sleep for the rest of the long train ride home. Things were going to be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> hope y'all liked! :D catch up with me on tumblr currently at weirdmageddon-wendy, where I would love to talk about mindelka or minffel or minkaffel. leave a comment or some kudos if you enjoyed! <3


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